


A timeless bond

by lunaemoth



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, F/M, M/M, Multi, Pack Bonding, Polyamory, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Soul Bond, Soulmates, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2020-12-17 01:36:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21046157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunaemoth/pseuds/lunaemoth
Summary: Time will bow for few things and even fewer people. Love and Peggy Carter are two of them.After all, Steve and Bucky without their third, that just can't be. Their souls won't stand it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ZepysGirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZepysGirl/gifts).

> This is for ZepysGirl who won an auction during MTH2018. She requested Bucky/Peggy/Steve with a loooot of our favorite tropes!
> 
> NB: Italics are telepathic conversations.

**1953, Norway**

Peggy stepped into the cave with careful steps. The ground was slippery, the stone dripping with water due to the thaw. It was this weather that had allowed the discovery of a 0-8-4, an object of unknown origins which was most certainly not human.

The newly formed S.H.I.E.L.D., specialists in the strange and unusual, had been called to the scene. It was one of their first operations on foreign ground — at least with the locals’ blessing. That’s why Peggy had insisted on coming herself. Howard would arrive soon enough (she didn’t want to know with what or who he had been busy with in Europe) to study the artefact in its environment. 

The lighting in the cave was peculiar, but she only understood why when she finally laid eyes on the artefact. It had been described to her (human-height, a shining stone cube with unidentified carvings), she even had seen a picture, but nothing could compare to seeing it with her own eyes.

The 0-8-4 glowed with something brighter than fluorescence or phosphorescence could achieve. The light reflected on all the humid surfaces, which was what gave the cave its eerie lighting.

_“Shiny.”_

_“Very helpful observation, Gary, thank you,”_ Peggy commented sarcastically.

Her daemon sent her a wave of mischievousness through their telepathic link. The Eurasian lynx was snuggled up around her shoulders, as he often was when they entered an unknown and possibly tainted environment. 

_“Can I get down now?”_ he asked.

_“Please. You’re not getting any lighter.”_

Gary made a dismissive noise and jumped to the ground to circle the artefact._ “Looks ancient and modern at the same time.”_

Peggy rolled her shoulders to relax them and hummed in answer, trusting her observant daemon for the visual inspection. _“Don’t touch it.”_

_“Of course not. Who do you take me for? Captain America?”_

She held back a snort (only her daemon could joke so easily about him) and turned toward the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent coming forward — an owl was resting on his shoulder. “Is it safe?”

“We’ve seen no signs of activity, ma’am. Radiation levels are steady and within acceptable parameters.”

She nodded. “Good. Mr. Stark should be here soon with the other scientists. Prepare their equipment and the shipment crate.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Left alone, Peggy felt a light pull toward the artefact. She looked for Gary and found him belly to the ground, forward paws stretched in front of him with claws out; he seemed to be trying to push back from the stone.

_“Gary, move!”_

_“I’m trying!”_

Worried by the note of panic in her daemon’s mind, Peggy ran to him and grabbed him by the hips to tug him back. Gary weighed roughly a third of her weight, but somehow felt so much heavier. She managed to pull him away with great difficulty. Fortunately, after only a few feet back, the mysterious pull disappeared as if it was never there.

_“Bloody hell. Thanks,”_ Gary sighed as she set him down so he could coil around her legs. _“That thing is creepy. I couldn’t look or move away.”_

_“I didn’t feel anything until you did,”_ Peggy noted with concern. _“It might only affect daemons. I’ll warn Howard to hold on to Rowa.”_ Rowa was Howard’s monkey daemon.

_“Yeah. _She_ would touch something she shouldn’t.”_

Peggy turned toward the exit and saw the previous agent walking back to her.

“Ma’am, the Geiger counter reacted briefly, is everything all right?”

“It seems to have reacted to my daemon. Warn everyone that—”

The pull came back, much stronger, and so brutal that she nearly lost her footing. Gary did. The lynx screamed in fear as he was swept off his paws and pulled into the cube, which rippled and swallowed him whole.

“Gary!” Peggy shouted, feeling the hollowing emptiness of her daemon’s sudden absence.

She jumped in without a second thought. No-one could expect a human to stay logical when their soul was ripped from them.

The artefact settled down after swallowing them, never reacting again to any daemon.

Despite Howard and every S.H.I.E.L.D. scientist’s best efforts, Peggy was never found.

She was declared MIA.

The 0-8-4 was classified a high-risk item and stored in the Fridge.

  


**2015, the Fridge, America, exact location classified**

Brock growled under his breath as he stepped over the dead body of a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Entering the Fridge had been easier but not as fruitful as planned. Someone had already come through and grabbed the artefacts he was looking for. Some other Hydra agents no doubt, but as most of them — himself included — had gone rogue in the aftermath of Insight, it would be hard to find them now. Brock’s team only had the leftovers to pick through, and Brock hated that feeling of being left with the crumbs… again.

“Pack this up and let’s go,” he ordered his men. He turned toward the roof exit where their helicopter was waiting, barely paying attention to their salute.

His daemon, Oko, a coyote, was waiting for him near the stairs. _“Where to now?”_ she asked him.

Brock was considering his answer when a noise made him turn around just in time to see one of his men fall to the ground. He grabbed his gun and went back the way he came. He dodged a chair to the face by rolling to the ground. Catching sight of an intruder, he aimed and fired, missing them when they dove behind a desk.

_“I know her,”_ Oko said as she followed him behind his shelter, one of the crates they had brought for shipment.

_“Her?”_

_“Yes. Her picture was on the wall in the director’s office.”_

Brock froze. There was only one woman framed in Fury’s office. One of the founders of S.H.I.E.L.D., Margaret Carter, also known as Captain America’s soulmate, famous for completing the curse of the Captain’s Triad by disappearing in a 0-8-4, sometime in the fifties.

_“Are you fucking kidding me? What? Did she time-travel or something?”_

_“Would it be so surprising? At this point, one more or one less...”_ Oko commented with derision.

_“Shit,”_ Brock muttered to himself. His history with the Captain’s team wasn’t exactly the best. However, he had one advantage: if she time-traveled via the 0-8-4, it meant that she must have appeared in the present recently. She wouldn’t know anything about him. He could use this…. Oh, yes, he could really use this. “Agent Carter?” he called.

A reply came after a few seconds of consideration: “Who is asking?”

“Agent Brock Rumlow of S.H.I.E.L.D..”

“I have no recollection of a Rumlow in S.H.I.E.L.D., and I hand-selected every agent.”

She had a no-nonsense tone which Brock could appreciate. “With all due respect, Ma’am, that was the case before you disappeared.”

“... How long ago was that?”

“Uh… Around sixty years?”

The old-fashioned British curses were quite entertaining.

“This is madness. Do you truly expect me to believe that?”

“Look around you. Does that look like something from the fifties?”

“... Those men used the HYDRA salute.”

“Ah. Sorry to tell you that HYDRA isn’t as dead as you might have thought it was. I was undercover among them. Not sure if I should thank you or not for taking care of them, it might compromise my mission,” Brock explained, the lies coming easily after years of playing double agent.

“I can knock you out too,” she offered snidely.

Brock chuckled. Captain America’s lady had guts, that was for sure. He wasn’t expecting anything less. “Tempting, Ma’am. Truce for now? I can show you a few things to explain.”

“Very well.”

They came out of hiding, slowly, not completely trusting each other. Brock gestured toward a computer and explained its use and the building’s. He showed her the room in which the artefact that had swallowed her was kept.

“That’s where I woke up,” she confirmed. “I was in the 0-8-4 for sixty years?”

“Seems so. Do you remember anything?”

“Nothing at all,” she murmured before turning toward her daemon for a telepathic conversation.

Discreetly, without moving anything else but his left hand, Brock grabbed his taser. He hit the lynx, who twitched and fell unconscious, immediately followed by his human. A daemon could stay conscious when their human wasn’t, but the opposite wasn’t true. You couldn’t stay awake without your soul — or it wasn’t in any recommendable state, the Winter Soldier came to mind.

Brock grabbed Peggy Carter before she could hit her head on the console, and he lowered her to the ground. Crouched beside her, he took his time to finally observe her. She was a pretty lady, less severe-looking when asleep. Her clothes and hair definitely looked like something from the fifties.

Oko investigated the lynx and sat back on her haunch thoughtfully._ “They smell weird.”_

Brock hummed, fingering the collar of Carter’s coat before asking:_ “How is it that I always stumble on what the good Cap has lost?”_

_“Last time didn’t exactly go well. What are you gonna do with them?”_

Tapping his fingers on his legs, Brock considered this new situation. He could use Carter as leverage against Cap, but to gain what? Ransom? Useless. The Captain wouldn’t believe his lover came back from the dead without seeing her face to face. Holding her hostage for when Cap would come closer to his scent? Too cumbersome. He wasn’t dragging an antique everywhere. He could simply kill her, he supposed, and inform Cap on how to find her body. That would be a nice revenge.

Brock grabbed his pocket knife and unfolded it, flipping it thoughtfully.

_“Kill her and he won’t leave us alone until we’re dead,”_ Oko commented without judgement.

_“He won’t anyway.”_

_“But you could win time.”_

Brock froze as he caught the knife he was twirling. _“You think he would be too busy for us if he finds her.”_

_“Soulmate back from the dead takes precedence over _enemy_ on the run, I think. That’s why he has been so slow to catch up to us. Too busy with his Bucky, I bet.”_

Brock smirked and pet his daemon fondly._ “You’re the smart one, old friend.”_

_“You know it. Without me, you’d be a pile of smoking ashes under that _helicarrier_.”_ Indeed, Oko had been the one to convince him to flee before his fight with Falcon got him trapped under the falling helicarrier. Thanks to her, his injuries had been minor.

Nodding in agreement, Brock put back his knife in its sheath and grabbed Carter.

  


**2015, Stark Tower, New York**

_“What do you think?”_

_“Of the press conference?”_

Steve rolled his eyes._ “You know what I’m thinking about.”_ Of course she did, she was his daemon, his soul. They were telepathically connected and always on the same wavelength.

Eve, a Malinois dog, sent him a cheeky grin. “_Bucky is fine. He’s getting better, and Natasha is with him. He trusts her… as much as he trusts anyone who isn’t us. Relax, Steve.”_

Steve sighed and nodded. _“You’re right.”_

_“Like always.”_

He tousled her fawn fur with an amused huff. She grunted, smoothing it again.

A moment later, the elevator stopped, and they stepped onto the common floor.

The Avengers were lounging around, waiting for lunch to be ready. Clint and Sam were sitting on the carpet in front of the TV, playing some competitive video games, while their daemons were perched on shelves close to the windows, made specifically for them by Tony.

Natasha was lounging on the couch, reading a book in a language that Steve was unable to identify, with her fox daemon sleeping on her lap.

In the presence of his pack, Steve felt more at ease. Their minds brushed his, instinctively checking his well-being. They focused back on what they were doing when they felt nothing out of the ordinary.

Bucky was sitting next to Natasha, leaning forward to pet the wolf daemon resting on his feet. Amy was a northwestern wolf, and formerly the most beautiful daemon Steve had ever seen, but she had suffered from her captivity. She was now too thin, with more white hair than she ever had. Despite his daemon’s difficulty to recover, Bucky had truly come a long way since they had found him a few months ago. He would have been unable to stay relaxed with so much company before. Of course, his eyes were on Steve as soon as he came in, but that was more cautious habit than paranoia.

Amy stood up and came to press against Eve, who welcomed the contact with an affectionate lick. Bucky followed more sedately and stopped at arms reach. Showing affection freely was the privilege of daemons. From the start, even when Bucky stayed away from Steve, Amy had accepted Eve. She hadn’t sought her out, but she hadn’t pulled away when the dog had offered comfort, despite the abuse she had suffered from Hydra to force Bucky into submission.

“How are you?” Steve asked, despite knowing the answer.

Bucky threw him an unimpressed glance and rolled his eyes. “I’m fine. How did that conference go?”

Steve shrugged. “Like usual. What’s going on for lunch?”

“Tony ordered Italian.”

_“With extra bolognese,”_ Amy offered helpfully.

Their bond was still hesitant to reopen, which made telepathic communications a bit hard to hear, especially coming from Bucky and Amy, but Eve got the message and waved her tail happily. Time would heal their bond. Once that happened, Steve would suggest Bucky join the pack bond, but not before, it would overwhelm him. Having lost half of his soulmates (they didn’t speak about Peggy, not yet, not after Bucky learnt she had been declared MIA at least) and trying to welcome the other half was already hard enough.

Before Steve could comment on Tony spoiling them, an alarm sounded out, getting everyone’s immediate attention, soon followed by Jarvis announcing:

“Brock Rumlow has been spotted.”

“Suit up!” Steve ordered, running toward the stairs. “Wheels up in five!”

They had been after Rumlow for months now. The rare times they had been able to catch his scent, he had been gone by the time they arrived. Not again!

**2015, north of Florida, Sundown Motel**

Peggy woke up slowly and groaned in distaste at her grogginess. _“Gary?”_

_“Yeah. That guy got me.”_

With some kind of electricity weapon able to knock them out nearly instantly. If that was what modern weapons were like, Peggy hated to be on the receiving end of it.

Peggy tried to pat around her to touch her daemon and comfort them both. While her right hand found the lynx lying on the duvet just next to her, her left was stopped immediately. She opened her eyes to see her wrist cuffed to the headboard of the bed she was resting on.

“You have got to be kidding me,” she grumbled as she looked around to find herself in what looked like a hotel room… a disturbingly modern one. The most blatant incongruity was the thin screen in the corner of the room, which could only be a television but was just… too thin. The sleek look was similar to the ‘computers’ she had seen in what Rumlow had called the Fridge. All of this seemed to corroborate the time travel theory, but she was still sceptical.

To her, it seemed like just a few hours ago — or, at worst, a day — she had been in Norway, 1953. She had come out of the artefact like she just had stepped through it, but instead of a cave, she had found herself in an unknown facility. The first people she had caught sight of had done the HYDRA salute… and all of this had led her to this new unknown place.

_“There’s a note,”_ Gary interrupted her confused thoughts. Unlike her, he was free of his movements. With his teeth, he grabbed the paper left on the bedside table to give it to her.

“Sorry for the cuffs,” she read. “I can’t let you leave until your hero arrives. In the meantime, try the TV. Welcome to the 21st century.” She frowned. “What is he talking about? My hero? In what damn universe?!”

_“It was on top of this thing,”_ Gary said helpfully as he nudged a little flat rectangular object with his paw.

Peggy stretched to reach the object and study it cautiously. It had at least a dozen buttons, some with numbers, others with letters or signs which meant nothing to her.

_“It might have something to do with the TV since that’s what that man wants you to do,”_ Gary suggested.

“I suppose,” Peggy grumbled. She wasn’t a big fan of television, but what wrong could it do? Finding information on her surroundings would be invaluable in the long term, so she could understand how to communicate with S.H.I.E.L.D. in this era and get help. Was Howard still alive? What about Jarvis? Angie? Everyone else she knew? She held back a shiver and consciously forced herself to not dwell on it. Speculating was pointless. “Try to find something to open the handcuffs,” she requested while tentatively pushing a red button at the top.

She wasn’t going to stay here to wait for a ‘hero’, whoever that might be. That Rumlow didn’t know her. She wondered who he was really, to knock her out and left her here to someone else’s mercy. One thing was sure: he would hear about it as soon as she got her hands on him.

oOo

“Room 112. The receptionist said Rumlow paid for a night in cash. He was alone. She didn’t see him leave, but she looks more focused on her phone anyway,” Natasha said in her micro as she walked up the stairs of the motel to the first floor.

“Room 112. Curtains are closed. Heat signature of one, lying on the bed. Daemon looks like some kind of medium-size quadruped. It matches Rumlow’s,” Clint observed from the opposite building’s roof.

“No signs of back-up anywhere,” Sam said as he landed on the motel’s roof and looked over the edge at their surroundings. The area was rural and flat, easy to monitor.

“Alright. Falcon, keep an eye on the room’s other side. Hawkeye, do you have a clear line of sight?” Steve asked as he slowly walked to the door of room 112, Natasha joining him while Bucky was coming from the other side of the corridor.

“Clear,” Clint confirmed.

“Black Widow, send Iron Man an update,” Steve ordered as he rolled his shoulders, ready to go in. The five of them should be able to deal with whatever they found here, but if necessary Tony could back them up within fifteen minutes.

Tilting his head, Steve listened carefully. Thanks to his developed hearing, he could hear that the TV was on, broadcasting some kind of news channel.

When he got Natasha’s confirmation, Steve met Bucky’s eye and waited for his nod before he murmured: “Three.” Eve stepped in front of the door, low to the ground, ready to burst in under the cover of his shield. “Two.” Bucky aimed his gun at the room’s window. “One.” Steve raised his shield above the lock. “Go.”

The lock broke on the first hit. Steve kicked the door open, and Eve ran in.

The dog was immediately jumped upon by an angry blur of fur. When Steve followed, he only had the time to raise his shield to block a large projectile — which he would identify later as a bedside lamp. Before he could recover, he was trapped by heavy fabric — a duvet.

_“Target’s not Rumlow,”_ a soft voice suddenly piped up through the pack telepathic link. Tal, Natasha’s fox, was a data collector and processor without equal. In the middle of the chaos, he could analyze the situation calmly. _“Female. Middle age. Brown hair. Lynx daemon. Brawler fighting style.”_

_“GARY!”_

Eve’s telepathic shout and her matching mix of shock, incredulity and elation took Steve by surprise. He had to put a knee to the ground while trying to untangle himself from the duvet, but a heavy weight jumping on him destabilized him, sending him to eat the carpet. Just as suddenly as it fell on him, it disappeared. Steve knew without needing to see it that it was Natasha. The pack bond allowed him to feel her next to him, pushing back his opponent. This gave him just enough time to send a baffled _“What?!”_ to Eve.

_“It’s Gary and Peggy!”_

_“Are you mad?”_

Steve finally managed to get out of the duvet and stand up. To his utmost shock, he realized that Eve and he were seized with the same madness. It was indeed a very familiar lynx which was wrestling his daemon in the entrance, while a beloved brown-haired woman was holding Natasha back with a bedside table. Dumbfounded beyond measure, Steve stayed unmoving for a few seconds. That was all that Bucky needed to consider him compromised and step in.

The gunshot scared the hell out of Steve who jumped and screamed: “Don’t shoot!”

It was with immense relief that he realized that Bucky had deliberately missed, shooting the makeshift weapon and not the person wielding it.

In answer, the Peggy lookalike threw the piece of furniture to Bucky’s face. It gave Natasha the opening she needed to wrestle her opponent into submission. Bucky, who had blocked the projectile with his metal arm, looked at the scene unfolding in front of him with a raised eyebrow.

“A bedside table. That’s a new one, Ma’am.”

Peggy turned her head away from the pillow Natasha was pressing her into and spit out a strand of hair out of her mouth. She glared at him as she said: “Sergeant Barnes. You’re way overdue for a debriefing.”

“Sure am, Ma’am,” Bucky agreed with a smirk.

“What’s going on?” Sam asked in their earpiece.

“The hell if I know,” Steve replied, staring at his calm soulmates in awe. They treated coming back from the dead like it was an everyday occurrence. He had done it, and it was his second time witnessing it, but he still was far from used to it.

“Captain Rogers, _you_ are overdue for a dance, and you’ll hear me at length about that.”

“You're the one who had disappeared when I got back,” Steve blurted out in his defense.

_“Abort! Play dead,”_ Eve suggested hurriedly. She was following her own advice under the weight of a displeased lynx sitting on her with his teeth to her throat.

Steve fidgetted and cleared his throat under the unimpressed stare of Peggy. 

“Can someone bring us to speed?” Clint asked on the com.

Telepathically (as she was busy trying to hold Peggy despite the remains of cuffs with a broken chain), Natasha replied: _“MIA founding member of S.H.I.E.L.D. Margaret ‘Peggy’ Carter is not missing anymore.”_

“What the hell?”


	2. Chapter 2

**November 1943, Italy, US Army camp**

“Stop hovering, punk,” Bucky muttered as he made his way out of the infirmary tent where he had been checked and treated after months in a prisoner camp. He was too thin and tired, but for someone who had gone through forced labor and experiments in Nazi hands… well, it could be worse. That’s what he told himself to keep going, at least. He had spent a night in the infirmary, but he still felt like hell. 

Steve had been waiting for him impatiently. He made a gesture to support him, but Bucky had managed to walk from Austria to Italy just fine without help, he could go through a few more steps to his bunk. However, Amy didn’t mind leaning on Eve’s wide frame. It was familiar: Eve had always been strong since she chose her adult form, unlike Steve. Gossips liked to say that it was to compensate. Bucky had always seen it as proof of his soulmate’s indomitable spirit: Steve had been dealt a bad hand at the birth lottery, but his mind was tough. Now, the body finally matched the soul.

“We can go to a private tent,” Steve said, touching his friend's elbow to stop him when he turned toward his regiment’s tent.

Bucky froze. “Punk, you might be a big deal, but I’m part of the 107th. Just because we’re soulmates—”

“Please, Bucky? Just for now, we need to talk…” Steve was pleading. That was new. He didn’t do begging.

“Does it have anything to do with that British dame?”

At first, he hadn’t noticed when the woman had rushed over to meet Steve when they arrived back to camp. He had been exhausted and was conversing with Amy who kept him awake and going. The feelings coming from Steve through their bond had caught his attention, though. He had looked up and met the lady’s eyes. ‘Gorgeous’ had been his first thought. _ ‘Ours’ _had been Amy’s. The crowd’s cheers had stopped any other consideration, and they had been separated. Still, there were little doubts allowed.

“She’s our soulmate, uh?”

Steve beamed. “You noticed!”

Bucky snorted. “Remind me again which one of us lived in denial for weeks before admitting we were soulmates? Please tell me you didn’t do that to the poor bird.”

“Well…”

“Damn it, punk,” Bucky groaned while Amy’s amusement filled their bond. 

Steve blushed and hurried to change the subject. “She wants to meet you.”

“Yeah, of course.” Bucky rubbed his neck. What are a few more minutes before resting at this point? He wouldn’t let a dame wait, especially not a soulmate. “What’s her name?” he asked while following ‘Captain America’ (what the hell? still not used to that).

“Peggy. I mean, her full name is Margaret Carter, but she prefers to be called Peggy.” 

_ “Her daemon is Gary,” _ Eve added helpfully. _ “He’s smart and fun.” _

_ “Did you two save them from complete embarrassment?” _Amy asked.

_ “Yes.” _

Thankfully, Eve wasn’t as stubborn as Steve when emotions were concerned. She was more forthcoming. Without her, Bucky would have had doubts about their relationship, but from the start, she had had none of Steve’s bullshit and cuddled with Amy without second thoughts. 

“Come on, I’m not that bad,” Steve whined.

“You are,” Bucky replied. “I feel bad for her. The plan had always been for me to meet her first.”

Steve pouted, but it was the truth. They had known since puberty that they were meant to be a triad. Bucky had always felt attracted to dames (he had a type too: brunette and curvy, smart and sassy), and Steve wanted children (what he wouldn’t admit is that he also liked to draw curvy brunettes). Something had been missing. Consequently, they had daydreamed about how they would meet her. Bucky had practiced wooing her. And now he would meet her after Steve while being a dirty mess. 

“She’s amazing, Bucky, you’ll see.”

The private tent was small and to the side of the camp. Steve stepped in after calling ahead. He pulled Bucky with him by the hand. 

Peggy Carter truly was gorgeous. She stood up at their arrival and looked at Bucky with sharp and curious hazel eyes.

“Sergeant Barnes. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you,” she said while offering her hand.

“Ma’am.” He nodded in greeting as he shook her hand. “I’m very sorry to have let you deal with that stubborn punk alone.”

“Hey!”

Peggy smiled and turned a fond look toward a pouting Steve. “Somehow, I managed.”

“So I see,” Bucky murmured, feeling forlorn (it was not supposed to happen this way). 

A flash of affection surprised him.

At their feet, their daemons didn’t care for military formality and human politeness. Amy, sitting on her haunches, had let the lynx come closer. After sniffing each other, Gary had stepped forward without hesitation and brushed his snout against Amy’s jaw. The wolf hummed in approval and laid to the ground so they could nuzzle each other. Eve joined in cheerfully, curling around them. 

“Well, that went fast,” Steve commented, amused. 

_ “It’s easier the second time,” _ Eve replied.

Bucky felt a little unsettled. That was _ too fast _ for him. These last days were such a frenzy that he couldn’t keep up. Two soulmates suddenly felt like too much. Could he be—

“Sergeant? Bucky?” 

A hand on his wrist caught his attention. He looked up into concerned eyes.

“You must still be exhausted. Come on and rest, we’ll have time to talk later,” Peggy offered while pointing toward a bed camp.

“I don’t— I’m part of the 107th…”

“It will be quieter here. Come.” And she didn’t leave him any choice, gently but firmly pushing him toward the bed and helping him out of his jacket. “Sleep. You’re safe.”

The warmth and affection coming from his bonds with Steve and Amy convinced him. He fell asleep easily.

**January 1944, London**

Bucky woke up slowly with the distant memory of a bad dream turned not-so-bad. First, he noticed warmth and comfort. For an army bed, this wasn’t so bad. Then he noticed the hand petting his hair and realized where the comfort came from. In the corner of his mind, he could feel his daemon cuddling with another. 

“Peggy?” he murmured while nuzzling the fabric next to his nose. It smelt good, floral. Peggy's perfume.

“Did you rest well?” she asked. He heard her turn a page. 

“Better after you got here,” he mumbled, now understanding how his nightmare had changed for the best. Contact with your soulmates did wonders to the mind.

Rising on an elbow, he looked around. Steve wasn’t here yet. Peggy had just come back from a meeting: she had removed her shoes, tie and jacket, and opened a few buttons of her shirt. 

Pushing his hair back in order, Bucky blinked to fully wake up. “When are we leaving, then?”

“The day after tomorrow, at dawn.”

He yawned. “Still two nights in comfort. Great.”

Peggy hummed and stayed focus on her report.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Doll, we might not have bonded yet, but I’m not Steve. I know women.”

At her pinched lips, he sighed and straightened. “What did he do?”

She hesitated.

He waited patiently, smoothing his shirt.

“He let another woman kiss him,” she admitted before describing the scene she had walked in.

Bucky snorted and then laughed. 

“You find this funny?”

“Yeah. I can imagine the punk floundering, totally blindsided.” He smirked and caressed Peggy’s knee. “What, do you think he tried to cheat on us?”

“No,” she sighed. “It’s just…”

“You know he doesn’t know how to act with the ladies. You even think it’s cute.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” she grumbled.

He chuckled and sat by her side against the wall. He took her hand and squeezed it. “You were upset. It’s fine, I get it. But you’ll have to be patient and forgiving with the punk.”

She grumbled but leaned against his shoulder. For a moment, she played with his hand, brushing their fingers together in short caresses. “It would be best to complete our bond before we leave London.”

He hummed in agreement. “Probably.”

When he failed to say anything else, Peggy tugged on his hand to get his attention. She raised her eyebrows questioningly. 

Completing a bond was done through daemons. It was a complex act which mostly felt to humans like reaching for another mind and opening yourself to them, to share your thoughts and emotions. The completion of that bond was overwhelming. It required a good state of mind. Bucky was hesitant to say that he was ready for it. However, it was necessary, and he wanted to have that connection he shared with Steve and that Peggy and Steve already shared. He wanted it, truly, so he nodded.

Amy and Gary took care of the heavy lifting. Curled around each other, they intertwined their souls until Peggy and Bucky’s minds felt so close that just a thought made the bond click. That wasn’t the hardest part for soulmates: it felt easy and natural, contrary to a pack bond. The hard part came after, when they had to deal with another mind so close to theirs. Accepting and sorting each other thoughts and emotions until they managed to establish boundaries could be a hassle. Steve had given Bucky a bad headache. 

Peggy’s mind was different from Steve’s, though. It felt… extremely tidy. 

The issue this time came from his side.

_ “I’m sorry,” _he thought in embarrassment.

Peggy shifted next to him. _ “Don’t be,” _ she replied in the same way. _ “I’d rather you think of me than you linger on the rest.” _

He was grateful she didn’t give voice to ‘the rest’: the doubts, worries and nightmares that still plagued him in a corner of his mind. Still, his thoughts about her were embarrassing. He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. “I swear to you, doll, that I don’t—”

To his surprise, Peggy straddled his lap and cupped his jaw to kiss him without hesitation.

_ “Don’t what? Want me?” _

He moaned._ “Trick question.” _

Her amusement filled their minds while she withdrew with a cheerful grin. Bucky stared at her lips smudged with lipstick and swallowed as he tried once again to get his emotions subdued. His desire for her had swollen with the kiss and overflowed to sweep Peggy in his—

“Stop thinking. I want this as much as you do,” she said before kissing him again.

_ “Yes, Ma’am.” _He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her closer, his fingers brushing the back of her thighs and hiking up the skirt so she could be more comfortable.

They only separated at the sound of the door opening. They turned to see a blushing Steve step in hurriedly. He pressed his back to the door and looked at them tentatively, with an alarmed expression. Eve ran to cuddle with Gary and Amy. 

Bucky snorted. “Sorry, punk. Did we project a little bit?”

“A little?” he squeaked, his eyes straying to Peggy’s legs and Bucky’s hand on her thigh.

_ “A fitting punishment, I think,” _ Gary whispered to Peggy and, for the first time, to Bucky. He sounded as posh, mischievous and smug as he imagined.

Peggy and Bucky wore matching smirks.

“Sorry, punk, I heard you were otherwise busy.”

“I— I didn’t… She— but I…”

Laughing at their flustered soulmate who had become red like a tomato, Bucky glanced at Peggy with a telling look. She chuckled and tilted in his hold to press her side against his chest and rest her head on his shoulder. He accommodated her, feeling warm, safe and happy for the first time in months, here with the other parts of his soul.

“Come here, idiot,” he demanded, wishing to draw out this contentment for as long as possible.

Steve complied eagerly.

Cuddling together on the bed was not easy, but as soulmates, Steve and Bucky had the right to a double bed. It could be worse. Still, Steve and he had always agreed they’d do things right. Triads’ bonds were accepted with more difficulty than a couple’s. In the army, it was easier and worse at the same time: people were too preoccupied and interested in their own happiness to make a big fuss, but as a woman in the military Peggy had to be above criticism. That’s why she didn’t sleep in this room with them.

“We’ll treat you right, doll,” Bucky murmured. “As soon as this damn war is over, we’ll marry you and give you everything you deserve.”

Peggy, dozing on his shoulder, hummed in agreement. 

  
  


**2015, New York, Avengers Tower**

Sixty years. Peggy had lost (or won?) sixty years.

Most importantly, in an incredible fluke of fate, she wasn’t the only one who ended up in this new millennia through unconventional means.

Steve and Bucky’s files were projected in front of her eyes, and she still had trouble to accept that this wasn’t just an elaborate dream. God knew she had had some vivid fantasies after losing both soulmates.

This was different than any wishful thinking, though. She could feel them.

Gary was laying on Eve’s back (they had play-fought a few minutes ago, to blow off steam; Eve had lost). Amy’s head was resting in contact with his paw. Peggy couldn’t dream this. Contact between daemons, more so between daemons’ soulmates, was inimitable.

They were here, by her side, for the first time in eight years by her count. For Steve, it was more like three years, but they had lived those years in completely different times and conditions. For Bucky… well, that was more complicated, and this was the part that left her most displeased. Hydra never ceased to be trouble.

Peggy waved at the projection and sighed when it scrolled down too fast. She’d need time to adapt to this modern technology. In the meantime… “Jarvis, if you please.”

“Of course, Miss Carter,” the disincarnated voice said kindly as the file went back to his previous position and scrolled down much slower.

“Thank you.”

Peggy pressed her palms together in front of her face to keep any spying eyes to notice her distress. Hearing her dear friend’s voice like this was… upsetting. She didn’t know what to make of it. She had added it to the long list of things she’d need to reflect on in due time. Right now, it was a strange form of comfort to have the help of someone (or something) that sounded like a friend in this unfamiliar place. 

There were eyes on her. She had dreamed to see them again, every day since she had lost them, and yet now that they were here, she couldn’t meet them, she couldn’t deal with them.

_ “Stop staring, Steve,” _ Gary said, ever vigilant and focused when her own heart betrayed her.

Steve, her beloved Steve, cleared his throat and looked away. “Sorry.”

They were in his apartments, in ‘Avengers Tower’. Peggy didn’t care much for it, but architecture and decoration were the last of her issues.

Steve was standing against a wall with his arms crossed over his chest, tense and expectant. Bucky was curled in an armchair, waiting much more patiently. He threw a fond, exasperated look to Steve. “Just breathe, punk,” it said without a word needed.

This was familiar. It reminded her of times spent between missions when she analyzed reports while Steve was itching for something to do and Bucky took the opportunity for a nap. This had the same energy, and she felt a rush of contentment at the idea that, despite everything, none of them had changed so much that their chemistry suffered from it.

She smiled.

“Something on your mind, doll?” Bucky asked, tilting his head and watching her with half-closed eyes.

She stood up from the couch and went to his side. The metal arm was disturbing to see, not for its own sake, but for all the history behind it, which she had just read about. Peggy’s hand went to his long hair. That was a big difference from her memories too, but a more wholesome one. She smoothed his hair back, pushing the wild strands away from his eyes. Such beautiful eyes, but when they looked at her now they looked more haunted than when they had just got him back from the prison camp in Austria.

“I missed you,” she murmured. Losing Bucky had been a very difficult time for Steve and Peggy — for Steve even more so than she— and she had struggled to keep them both going, despite the conflicting emotions coming from their bond with their lost soulmate. At times, they had felt like Bucky was still alive, while most often the bond had been… dead. Therapists had told them it was due to shock and denial, a psychological illusion they hid behind to soften the blow. They had been wrong. God, they had been so wrong...

“Yeah?” He caught her hand and squeezed it with his flesh one. “I thought you were going to tell me I needed a haircut.”

She snorted. The tears coming to her eyes were pushed back by fond affection. “Well, that too,” she agreed with a tilt of her head. “You shouldn’t hide such beautiful eyes, dearest.” She rested a knee on the arm of the chair and leaned forward to kiss his forehead.

_ “It’s easier,” _ Amy whispered in their collective bond. Gary raised his head and nuzzled her questioningly when she didn’t say anything else. _ “It’s easier to hide.” _

“Oh, darling,” Peggy murmured. “You don’t need to hide from us. Never.”

Bucky looked away instead of answering. Peggy huffed, removed her shoes with a shake of her feet and climbed on the armchair. Confronted with an armful of soulmate, Bucky had no choice but to secure her position with both hands on her waist. Peggy used his lack of freedom to cup his cheeks and press a kiss to his lips. 

Their bonds were still active. They had never disappeared, just… closed. Finding each other again had cracked open the door, but both Peggy and Bucky were careful with what they let through. Steve, in comparison, seemed as open as they remembered him. 

Faced with Bucky’s hesitation, though, Peggy freely shared her affection. On the carpet where they were laying, Gary rolled down Eve’s side and ended up sprawled against Amy, rubbing his neck against hers. Amy leaned to the side and lifted a paw to capture Gary, keeping him pressed and unmoving against her. Gary complied easily, settling in a comfortable position with a yawn. 

Soft footsteps announced Steve’s approach. He leaned his elbows on the back of the armchair and let his hand hang to brush Peggy’s neck.

“I’m glad you’re here, Peggy,” he said softly. “Maybe you’ll make the jerk listen.”

“Shut up, punk”, Bucky grumbled as he hit his head softly against the furniture but kept his fingers curled around the fabric of Peggy’s clothes (bought by Natasha and Pepper). “You don’t understand. I did things… I changed.”

“You think we didn’t?” Peggy whispered, stroking his beard. “I understand you went through harsh and dark times, and I’ll gladly shoot anyone responsible if I were to meet them, but we all changed, Bucky. I had to go through eight years without both of you. I dealt with bullshit, I had to do some things I am not proud of, and I fought for every responsibility I got… All of us have changed, but if you’re willing to work through this, then we can deal with it. I know we can.”

If losing Bucky had been hard, losing Steve had left a gaping hole in her chest. Their soulbond had faded and then vanished like mist when he sank in the Atlantic to be frozen for decades.

She had kept going with only the determination to continue and finish the mission they were all devoted to. After the war, during those awful months when she had been pushed into the background, she had cried and faltered more than once. Only Gary and the memory of her soulmates had kept her going. She had focused all her grief into productivity, into continuing what they all believed in, no matter the price. Howard Stark had been a great support because he felt the same way. There was a part of them who died during World War II. 

Now that she had them back, she didn’t know how to feel. Time had shifted, and yet time was certainly what they needed to settle into this new configuration. All she knew was that she was determined to make it work. She didn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

Steve leaned down and curled around them, kissing Bucky’s hair and resting a hand on his back in support. “Listen to her. You know she’s the smartest of us all.”

Bucky huffed but nodded, tension leaving his body as he surrendered to his soulmates’ combined might. Peggy kissed his cheek and nuzzled against his ear. Steve came to sit on the chair’s arm and they cuddled for a while in comfortable silence but not a comfortable position. When Bucky made a noise and tried to stretch a leg, Peggy stood up to give him some space. It left her standing in front of Steve. She raised an eyebrow at him.

“I believe you owe me a dance.”

Steve beamed. “Yes, Ma’am.”

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on: lunaemoth.tumblr.com


End file.
